All saints

The Argentinians adore their saints, canonized or not. Worshipped like angels or popular saints, Father of modern Argentinian tango, Carlos Gardell and everyone's Evita are the most obvious examples of great Argentinians who died young and tragically and after their death became imortal. Evita was honoured with 30 days of national mourning (!) after giving in to cancer. Gardell crashed in an airplane somwhere in Colombia in the thirties. Maradona will be next. Relating to saints is common in Catholisism and is far from madness, although different.

Roadside saints, mystrious shrines and sanctuaries was built in recognition of a popular pagan saint. Covered in ribbons and waving flags, packed with half-burnt candles, plastic bottles and make-do crosses, they are sites for bus and truck drivers who stop and say a little prayer, leave their offering and ask for blessings and a safe journey with a honking of horns.

Difunta Correa and Gauchito Gil are the big-names. During their lives, the suffering women and the brave gaucho both lived in the turbulent times of the mid 19th century, they both died tradically as unintended victims of the civil wars that hit Argentina at the time.
The faithful wife Difunta (deceased in Spanish) decided to follow her husband's steps to La Rioja when he, a federales political activist, was taken prisoner by an opposing militia, los unitarios. She never got to free him (or if that failed, bring his body home). Holding her young son in her arms, she died of thirst in the Caucete desert. Her story became legend stuff when a few days later, some shepards found her baby son alive and still breast-feeding from the deceased mother. Beleiving they had witnessed a miracle, they set up a cross on her burial ground on top of a small hill in the middle of a barren plain. Fifty years later, a herdsman crossing this hill on his way to Chile, was caught in a storm, loosing all his 500 cows. In desparation he prayed to the unknown grave to recover his cattle. It worked, he got them all back, and in gratitude he built a grotto with his own hands to the Difunta. It is just off the Ruta National 141, in the little town of Vallecito, 63 km east of San Juan. Hundreds of thousands arrive here during holy week, climbing up a set of stairs on their hands and knees.

Humbler, but growing, is the sanctuary of the Gaucho Gil in the north-east province of Corrientes. He found himself caught in the provincial civil wars between los celestes (light blue)and los colorados (red). Despite disinterest and lack of fighting skills he was recruited by the celeste Colonel Juan de la Cruz Zalazar, but tried to escape to the mountains and was decleared a deserter by the authorities. According to legend he became an Argentinian Robin Hood, stealing from the rich landowners of the region and distributing among the poor. He was also said to be able to heal the sick. Eventually he was found by the police, taken to court and hung hed-down from a tree. Just before he died, he said to his hangman: "When you get home tonight, you'll find that your son is about to die. You can ask me to save your child, because the blood of an innocent man helps perform miracles". Gil's executioner, regretting what he had don, erected a cross with a red ribbon hanging form the top. The site is located outside the city of Mercedes, 200 km south-east of Corrientes city. Every year, more than 100 000 people gather to commemorate his deth on 8 January. Devotees travel from all over the country to indulge in singing and dancing, mainly chamamé, the traditional folk rythm of Corrientes. Next to the shrine there is a campground, bars, cafés and stalls selling ultra-tacky souvenirs.

The pantheon of popular saints in Argentina does not end here, though. Also growing steadily in the devotional ranks are the various poor cousins of la Difunta and el Guchito: La Telesita, patron of the peasants form the norhtern province Santiago del Estero: the grisly cult of San la Muerte (Saint of Death) in the north-east, and more recently, the "canonized" figures of Gilda and Rodrigo, the popular Cumbia-singers who died young in car crashes during the 1990s. They have huge fan groups who meet at their graves, particularly at weekends, eat, drink, sing and decorate the graves with balloons and flowers, offerings of cigarettes and they bring crusifixes and pictures of Virgin Mary. The practice is stigmatized and a pronounced lower class fenomenon. Those who involve themselves are poor and from the working class. At the same time the local music genre Cumbia is in itself stimatized and considered lower class, while the middle class listen to European and American music. They have some way or the other become (sub)cultural saints after their death.

Most of the devotees of these pagan saints consider themselves orthodox Catholics and see no doctrinal contradiction in worshipping the Church´s "official saints" alongside their own unofficialy canonized folk heroes. Their worship builds on Catholisism and more prayers can do no harm, they say.

And the shrines just keep growing.

This text is partly based on Valeria Perassos BBC radio series Rituals on the Road, www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/heart_and_soul.shtml